You may have already heard about me through the newsletter, but I wanted to briefly introduce myself. My name is Justin DeBrosse, and I’ll be taking over the website. Dawn Allen did a lot of great work, and I’m excited to pick up where she left off!
I wanted to let you all know about a potentially very useful resource I’ve come across. The Center for the Study of Adult Literacy (CSAL) has developed a pretty nifty tool that allows them to determine the grade level of different websites. Clicking here will take you to their learner page.
You can see that they’ve broken the websites down into difficulty level and topic. What I like about this website is that you can choose a topic (and maybe you’re already covering one of these topics in your class!) and then choose a reading level that’s appropriate for your students. The readings are also likely to be pretty relevant to your learners. If you have the resources, this may also be a way to introduce digital/computer literacy to your students.
If you want to take it even further, you can transition from easier texts to more difficult texts on the same or similar topics. For example, here are an EASIER and a MEDIUM text, both on smoking. You could use scaffolding or a similar strategy to transition your students from one to another!
Of course, use your discretion and your expertise when determining when and how to introduce texts.
I found this website by looking through LINCS at lincs.ed.gov, which has been mentioned here on the blog before.
How do you see this website being useful for you? Your students? Others? Do you know of any other websites that might be useful for us? Please comment below!